flute players

[Klearchos]

Hail

In ancient Hellas they used flute or pipe players to give the soldiers a marching rythm in battle. Maybe you can add a banneret-like figure, to act as a piper. If you add pipe tunes when someone zooms in the battalion, it will be really cool.

[MeinPanzer]

Polybius (4.19.4) tells us that the Cretans and the Lacedaimonians utilized the flute in combat in place of the horn, so it seems this may only have been a characteristic of Doric Greeks during the EB timeframe.

[abou]

I don't know if it is anything the team has looked into yet. Without the model limit expect a lot more of this type of stuff.

As a sax and flute player myself I would be curious as to what kind of instruments we find in EB's era (I think we've all seen images of a Skythian or other person with an instrument strapped around his head). Modern flutes just can't get the volume that would be needed to carry over the clamor of battle so I imagine the construction would be fairly different.

I wonder if there is anything on the balustrade of the Temple of Athena from Pergamon.

[Watchman]

Fifes were used to set the marching pace (or something) back in the musket-and-bayonet days, tho'...

[Klearchos]

Polybius (4.19.4) tells us that the Cretans and the Lacedaimonians utilized the flute in combat in place of the horn, so it seems this may only have been a characteristic of Doric Greeks during the EB timeframe.


But the horn would be used to sound the charge or the retreat. The fife was used to give the soldiers the marching rythm, and the "pushing" rythm (for the hoplites that is).

[MeinPanzer]

But the horn would be used to sound the charge or the retreat. The fife was used to give the soldiers the marching rythm, and the "pushing" rythm (for the hoplites that is).

Do you have some specific sources that state how the two instruments were used in ancient combat?

[Klearchos]

Do you have some specific sources that state how the two instruments were used in ancient combat?


No, only what I have seen in pottery designs.In a battle scene, there is often a guy who plays an instrument (we call it "αυλός" in greek, I don't know the proper english word.). This instrument can be single or double and is straped around the players head.
As for the horn, I can't imagine how it can give a marching pace...I think it requires pretty strong lungs to sound a battle horn, and it would be REALLY hard for someone to give the pace with it.
But again: no I don't have specific sources.

[DaCrAzYmOfO]

Aside from flutes and the obvious drums, what other instruments were in use?

I'm sure there werent any others, but if someone knows that there were :idea2: